Sunday, November 8, 2015

Tough Love and the Duty to Protect Life and Liberty

By Rudy
Barnes, Jr.

The greatest commandment makes loving our
neighbors as ourselves a moral imperative of our faith, and that requires the
duty to protect life and liberty in a dangerous world with the use of force. Moses and Muhammad had no trouble doing that,
but Jesus complicated the issue when he taught: …do not resist an evil person. If
someone strikes you on the right cheek turn to him the other also. (Matthew
5:39) And Jesus went on to say: You have heard it was said, Love your
neighbor and hate your enemies. But I
tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…. (Matthew
5:43,44).

Many
pacifists have taken those sayings literally as a prohibition against any use
of lethal force, but most Christians consider the sayings as hyperbole that was
typical of Jesus. Otherwise it would be
impossible to protect life and liberty in a dangerous world. The real challenge for the faithful is not
whether lethal force can be used, but when and how it is used, and that raises
issues of tough love and the duty to protect.

The
duty to protect life and liberty is based on love for others—not hate for those
who threaten them—and it requires the use of lethal force by those police and
military forces who are charged with the duty to protect. When and how lethal force is used is governed
by rules of engagement that are grounded in self-defense and the defense of
others; and while there have been too many instances of the use of excessive force,
the prohibition of lethal force is not an option if we expect to maintain the law
and order that is needed to protect freedom and justice.

The
duty of the military to protect U.S. national security interests requires understanding
the threat, the operational environment and U.S. military capabilities. Containment rather than military intervention
is the best U.S. strategy to combat Islamist terrorism in Islamic cultures, but
elsewhere domestic intelligence and law enforcement operations must identify,
apprehend and prosecute terrorists.
These complementary approaches are needed to protect lives and vital U.S.
security interests from Islamist terrorism, and they require that the
capabilities of U.S. security forces are properly matched with their strategic missions.

President
Obama has continually asserted that there are no U.S. combat forces in Iraq or
Syria, but he has acknowledged that U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) have
conducted direct action strikes and raids against ISIS in the past and will
continue to do so in the future. These
are combat operations conducted by elite warriors of SOF and represent U.S. “boots
on the ground.” Such direct action SOF
operations should not be confused with indirect SOF advisory and training
missions, but statements by President Obama and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter
have confused those two fundamentally different military capabilities and their
missions.

The
elite SOF warriors of the Army’s Delta Force and Navy’s Seals conduct direct
action strikes and raids, such as the take-down of Osama bin Laden and the recent
liberation of Kurdish prisoners in Iraq.
By way of contrast, SOF advisors and trainers rely on indirect action to
achieve mission success. They are diplomat-warriors
whose legitimacy and effectiveness depend upon keeping a low profile and
motivating their Muslim counterparts to do most of the fighting; and they work
as closely with State Department officials as with the military chain of
command.

The
legitimacy of the extended advisory and training missions of SOF diplomat-warriors
requires public support both at home and in the operational area, and that
public support is jeopardized by conflicting standards of legitimacy. SOF personnel are expected to respect local
laws and moral standards and also report violations of fundamental human rights
under the Leahy law. Such violations are
inevitable where apostasy and blasphemy laws deny the freedoms of religion and
speech, and women and non-Muslims are denied equal protection of the law. This can create a mission impossible for SOF diplomat-warriors
in Islamic cultures.

The
fundamental freedoms of religion and speech are anathema to radical Islamism,
which is the life-blood of Islamist terrorism.
Those freedoms are necessary for Muslims to challenge the legitimacy of radical
Islamism, and U.S. combat operations only increase the legitimacy of radical
Islamism among Muslims. Understanding how
libertarian human rights can undermine the legitimacy of Islamist terrorism is
critical to achieving U.S. strategic objectives; and SOF diplomat-warriors can support
their Muslim counterparts in their battle for legitimacy.

Jews,
Christians and Muslims all share the moral imperative to love God and to love
their neighbors as themselves. In a
dangerous world that requires tough love and the duty to protect life and
liberty. In Islamic cultures Muslims should
have the freedoms of religion and speech to challenge the legitimacy of the
radical Islamism that sustains Islamist terrorism. Promoting those fundamental freedoms should
be a strategic objective of SOF diplomat-warriors who advise and train Muslims on
the front lines of the battle for legitimacy.

Notes
and References to Resources:

Previous blogs on related topics
are: Faith and Freedom, December 15,
2014; Religion, Violence and Military
Legitimacy, December 29, 2014; The
Greatest Commandment, January 11, 2015; Jesus
Meets Muhammad: Is There a Common Word of Faith for Jews, Christians and
Muslims Today? January 25, 2015; Religion
and Human Rights, posted February 22, 2015; A Fundamental Problem with Religion, May 3, 2015; Religion, Human Rights and National Security,
May 10, 2015; De Oppresso Liber: Where
Religion and Politics Intersect, May 24, 2015; Christians Meet Muslims Today, posted June 21, 2015; Freedom and Fundamentalism, August 2,
2015; How Religious Fundamentalism and
Secularism Shape Politics and Human Rights, August 16, 2015; Legitimacy as a Context and Paradigm to
Resolve Religious Conflict, August 23, 2015; and A Strategy to Defeat Radical Islam: Containment, not Confrontation,
November 1, 2015.

On turning the other cheek (Matthew
5:39), see Submission, retribution and giving to all who ask in the
J&M Book at page 102.

Michael Walzer has postulated that
life and liberty are human rights that justify the duty to protect in war. See Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars,
Basic Books, 1977, pp xvi, 133-137,